


stars

by glim



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Inspired by Fanart, Introspection, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, POV Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 00:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15352161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: New York City unwinds around Barnes tonight and in that unwinding it's easier to remember that he's home.





	stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poe/gifts).



> A Bucky POV piece in the same as AU as [Maps](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15154412/chapters/35143583). Also inspired by the artwork by Poe for Maps.

"I'll walk," Barnes says. 

Stark makes a gesture, as if to encompass the world of settling dust and falling dusk around them, to cup the city streets and evening sky, to lend them the light that glows in the palm of his hand. He shakes his head, then lets his hand fall to his side and gazes past Barnes, past the debris, to the Tower that waits for him across the city. 

"Midtown's only--okay, right, you're not walking to Midtown." Stark asks, his voice dry and though he aims for disbelief, he comes up short, sounding only exhausted. "Your call, Barnes." 

Barnes gives him a nod in reply. The autumn evening is heavy and still now, tight with the tension that comes after a battle, the uneasy quiet of newly won peace. The sensation is a familiar one to Barnes, bone-deep and born out of the suffering of the Second World War. The first war he fought, the one he left unfinished, the one that left an indelible mark in his breath and his blood. The heavy stillness clings to him now, like the faint, fine dust and smoke that will float for hours around this torn-up neighborhood at the edge of the city. 

By tomorrow, these streets will be clear, the dust filtered along the cool morning breeze before sunrise and after SHIELD's quiet clean-up crew does their work. 

"I'll walk," he says again. 

"I can give you lift, Barnes. Don't be like that. Are you hurt?" Stark asks. His voice goes low and rough now, and he he offers Barnes his hand, but lets it drop to his side once more after a few silent seconds. "If you're back by tomorrow morning, I'll help you fix the bike. You did a number on it this time." 

In spite of the smoke and the ache in his throat, Barnes smiles. He loves that bike, and he likes Stark enough to trust him to spend Sunday afternoon helping him fix it back up. "Debrief at 0800." 

"Okay, that's what I get for letting you run point, Sarge. Eight o'clock," Stark agrees. The street is silent and still for a few seconds, then there's a blur of sound, of red and gold, and Stark is gone. 

The missions that Barnes takes most to heart are the ones that try to pull him out of the city, that try to alienate him from a space that was his long before the war, before the cryo chamber and the forgotten memories. It's hard, he knows, to take the damage done to the sidewalks and buildings around him and remember that there was good done here, too, that homes and live scan be rebuilt because of what people like him do. 

Barnes wasn't built for the war, and he wasn't built for the Avengers Initiative, but somehow both found him and he found himself determined to push back the tide of time and rebuild the world around him. 

The missions that Barnes takes most to heart are the ones that take place closest to home. He's already mapped out tonight's quiet city blocks, the uneasy peace that settles around them, and the paths they've worn into his heart. 

He needs this tonight: the quiet, the city falling into the lazy doldrums of evening around him. Not just the city, but his city, his home, the sprawling streets and bridges that wore a path into his mind and body long before he ever though to commit them to the endless neighborhoods of memory. 

Now, after seventy years of sleep and the coldness of time pressing against his heart and lungs, he's walked them all. He's walked through the roughest neighborhoods and the quaintest suburbs; he's known them all, known their days and ways, known them as a boy and then a man, relearned their twists and turns as he walked into this new century. 

Tonight, he walks through Manhattan to Brooklyn, makes quick work of the bridge without losing the way the walk fill his senses: the buzz of traffic, the hum of a city that's always awake, the promise of home in the taste and scent of the city air. New York City unwinds around Barnes tonight and in that unwinding it's easier to remember that he's home. 

Five minutes outside Cobble Hill, he pulls his hair out of the tight ponytail at the nape of his neck, tugs the glove off his right (but not his left) hand, and unzips the tac vest to feel some of the evening air against his skin. It's nearly night by the time he reaches home. He lets the toes of his boots scuff the pavement in front of the steps and smiles when he realizes he's not alone anymore. 

"You're late. How long were you walking?" Steve says. He has an opened book on his lap that he's no longer reading, his phone on a step behind him, playing some low, listless music that fills the space around him. 

"An hour, maybe? Bike's a wreck," Barnes explains. He holds his breath for a moment when Steve looks up at him, his eyes a little too dark and his skin a little too pale in the light of the streetlamp. 

"What about you?" Steve asks. His tongue edges over his lips and a frown creases between his eyebrows. The streetlamp blinks out for a couple seconds, and pale moonlight chases over Steve's face, silvering the edges of his gold-blond hair, and he finally just smiles. "C'mon, Buck, you're home. You think I can't read the pain and the exhaustion all over your face?" 

The streetlight stutters on, then off, then decides to let the pale, rising moon do it's work. A few stars pinprick the evening sky in a faint, familiar pattern over Steve's building. Bucky flicks his gaze from the lamp to the sky, then back to Steve's eyes. 

"You're home," Steve says, really soft the second time, and pats the space on the step next him. "Come sit with me, Bucky..." 

It's his name, said twice and softly, that brings Bucky back, that clears the dust from the day's mission and the long walk from his mind. He settles on the step and rests his head against the point of Steve's shoulder. A few dry leaves chase each other on the sidewalk in front of them and Steve's fingers lace between the ones on his right hand.


End file.
